Fox News: Dishonest and Incompetent

Read my previous post about the Orwellian, fraudulent 9/11 "first responder" bill. Then consider these points, reported by Fox News AFTER the bill passed, but not before (a deliberate incompetence):

1. Attorney's fees were limited to 10%. Say what? WHAT attorney's fees? No one, including the dishonest Fox News, reported anything about attorney's fees before the deal to pass the bill. This is no accident. Tis bill--as I accurately told lyou, IN FORESIGHT--was right out of "11984". The title/propaganda of the bill had little to do with the content of the bill--which was nothing but a PORK EARMARK for New York City and New York politicians. Yes, this illustrates why I would not mourn ANY Republican Senator serving in the last Congress, with the possible exception of Jim Demint. No, I will NOT vote for either of the two Texas Senators, for the rest of my life (not just because of this, but this is consistent with their overall performance). Republican politicians refused to expose this bill for what it was--concentrating again on PROCESS instead of exposing the real objections to the bill (albeit Republicans should have limited the "lame duck" section to no more than 2 or 3 items, and generally exposed themselves as kunable to make the case for democracy and ignoring the vote of the people when the case was handed to them.

2. Fox News reprtted--again AFTER the bill was passed--that only 1.2 billion dollars of the 4 plus BILLIOIN dollar bill had anything to do with health care for ANY "responder"--much less "first responders". See my previoius entry where I told you so. In other words, 25% of this bill was even arguably about the subject upon which the bill was SOLD (propaganda): health care for "first responders". Yes, the DISHONEST Fox News was a part of this propaganda.

3. The overall bill was reduced from an original 7.2 billion, and then 6 billion plus, to 4.2billion, and Democrats assured people there had been no "betrayal" of "first responders". Say what? The bill was reduced almost in half, and there was no "betrayal"? Just how BAD was the original bill? And Republicnas were PROUD of the fact that they "reduced" the PORK in this bill to a mere 75% (at a minimum, since the people who can claim benefits are NOT merely what would ordinarily be in the definition of "first responders"). Tom Coburn (vote AGAINSTR him) was PROUD of this "compromise" which prevented Republicans from having to take an actual stand on princiiple--wherther a principle of "process" or of the fraudulent bill itself. Coburn was PROUD of eliminating "double dipping"--whereby people could claim compensation for the same things that they had already been paid. NO, Coburn did NOT prevent all "double dipping". What about PRIVATE benefits? Waht about private insurance? What about disability payments? What about a hundred other benefits 9/11 "victims" received from any number of sources, including payment for books, etc.? Did Fox News report that the original bill allowed even obvious "double dipping"? Not a chance. Fox News--based in New Yokr--WANTED some version of this bill to pass. Fox News is DISHONEST and INCOMPETENT.

4. Note that--as the attorney's fee provision indicates--this bill was NOT mainly about helath care. It was, and is, about COMPENSATION (taxpayer money paid simplly as a gift, and NOT for "health care"). Did Fox News tell you that BEFORE the passage of the bill. No. That is because Fox News is DISHONEST and INCOMPETENT. WHY do construction workers who helped with the search for bodies and the cleanup--noble as that is, if they did not want to get in the lpockets of the taxpayers--deserve BILLIONS in taxpayer compensation, when SOLDIERS maimed and killed in Afghanistan receive no such compensaton? PORK. Politics. That is the whole reason, and it stinks. And the whole reason Fox News did not report on what was in this bill until it had already passed is that Fox News is based in New York (aside from total incompetence, which may have played a small part). I am morally certain of this.

I could go on, but you get the point. The 9/11 "first responders" was an Orwellian, fraudulent bill. And Fox News willingly participated in the fraud.

No, this is NOT the first time I have said this about Fox News. I have repeatedly said that Fox News is part of the mainstream media problewm, and NOT part of the solution. And Fox keeps proving me right. No, I do NOT "regularly" watch Fox News. In fact, I have reached the point where I surf multiiple "news" sources in an effort to read between the lines of themm all. I am VERY good at that. Fush Limbaugh continues to give a better view of the "news" than ALL of the supposed "news" media, and he is far from perfect (as you would expect, since he is not DISHONEST, like Fox, and does not hide his BIAS).

Yes, I know the rest of the mainstream media was WORSE on the fraudulent 9/11 "first responders" bill. Jon Stewart exposed himself as both an idiotand a partisan ideologue, and he is supposed to be a COMEDIAN. The "news" people were just as bad as Stewart, or worse. But you EXPECAT CNN and MSNBC--not to mention ABC, CBS and NBC--to be nothing more than distributors of "1984" style propaganda. The point of this article--besides "I told you so"--is t expose Fox News as DISHONEST and INCOMOPETNET, in its own way. Nope. This is not even a matter of simple "bias". It is a matter of DISHONESTY, and the media are all DSIHONEST, including Fox News. Thewy are ALL uninterested in the facts, but only in their own agenda. William Randolph Hearst--not to mention Joe McCarthy--is surely smiling in his grave at the raw deal Orson Welles gave him in "Citizen Kane". Hearst was probably a better "news" persaon--damning with faint praise-than ANY modern "journalist".

No, it is merely part of the mainstream media propaganda that Fox is not interested in "journalism", while they are. They are WORSE than Fox, wich is at least--as advertised--somewhat "balanced". That is NOT the problem of Fox. The problem of Fox is that Fox rarely appears more interested in the FACTS than the rest of the media. The FACTS are the first responsibility of "journalists"--NOT "interpretation". Every single AP story I read starts off with an INTERPRETIVE pargraph. Whatever facts the AP feels like reorting do not appear until the second paragraph of any AP story, if then.

The mainstream media never reported on the FACDTS of the health care bill (what was actually in it). They neer reported on the FACTDS of the Bush/Democrat TARP bill. Neither did Fox. It is no accident that the TARP bill NEVER was implemented in the way that was DEBATED in Congress (and the media). Instad , the bill was simply a blank check for the Secretary of the Treasury, and the President, to bail out ANYONE in any way they wanted (the very thing that Democratts assured us they would ensujre the bill did not allow).

I stand by what I say above: Fox News is DISHONEST and INCOMPETENT. You should not watch them without taking whatever they say wth large grains of salt. Drudge uses multiple sources for "news"--albeit with outrageous headlines (which I often like).Limbaugh gives multiple points of view, while twisting them all to his own pint of view. The despicable AP can be relied upon--as repoted on the equally despicable Yahoo and multiple other places, including Fox News--to present the LEFTIST pont of view (the "consensus" leftist view) on any matter. Surf them all. Believe none of them.

Who are you to believe? Well, you can believe ME. Sure, I may make a mistake from time to time (rare as that is), but you get HONESTY. I think you generally (not always) get honesty from Limbaugh. You will NOT get it from Fox News, and even less from the mainstream media (excluding Fox). I don't have the time (or eyesight) to do what "journalists" should do: read the bills and rekport the factual DETAILS involved in all of these bills (and political games). But I still get it more right than Fox, because I can figure out what is going on from what IS reported (ignoring what they tell me they are reporting). Again, see the previous entry, and compare it with what Fox reported AFTER the vote (unanimous voice vote) on the 9/11 "compromise".

Note (as usual): Above not proofread, or even spell checked, due to bad eyesight (unless and until this message is deleted). Fox News should be ashamed that I am a better "journalist" with no eyes than any of them are with perfect eyes. The rest of the mainstream media have no shame. "1984" is their model, and they are sticking to it (not as Orwll intended, but as an "how-to" model in how to do "black is white" propaganda).